Zach_Lim wrote:Also, I read that jaguars make it into parts of the south west. Can anyone confirm this?

What other wild felines, big or small, reside in the US?

Hey Zach - Regarding Jaguars, their historic range included W. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. I recall reading that the last Jaguar in California was killed near Palm Springs in the early 20th Century. They still can be found in Southern Arizona, though sightings are infrequent. If memory serves me correctly, there was a research group that had set up game cams to document Mountain Lions in the area. One of the researchers' game cams captured a Jaguar… this was probably within the last five years.

Regarding other wild felines of the SouthWest, we have the Jaguarundi, Ocelot, and a historical sighting of a Margay. The Margay sighting is from Texas in the 19th Century, so we can safely say no to the Margay's presence.

Ocelots and Jaguarundis are both medium-sized cats, coming in at about 15-40 lbs. I don't know much about the current status of the Ocelot, but I believe that they can still be found in Texas and Arizona.
Jaguarundis are seldom seen, but to the best of my knowledge, are doing well in Arizona. When I herped in Arizona, what I wanted to see most was Jaguar, Jaguarundi, Javelina, and Coatamundi. Didn't see any of the four, but it was exciting to be in their habitat, where I had the off-chance of crossing paths with one of the aforementioned species.

As Garia said there have historically been 7 cats species documented from the US and Canada:
Bobcat
Canada Lynx
Mountain Lion
Jaguar
Ocelot
Margay
Jaguarundi

The top three are widespread. Jaguar has a few that turn up in the US, but I think they are all thought to be wandering males and no breeding going on. Margay hasn't been seen since 1850-something. Jaguarundi I have no clue and Ocelots have very small numbers in s. Texas, with a huge percent of their US population on Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in south Texas.

Personally, I have only ever seen 2 Bobcats. One while walking a trail in s. Texas and 1 while roadcruising in Kansas. I would love to see more.

So, if the biggest you have ever seen is a Bobcat, does that mean you have seen other small wild cat species?

Derek,
Thank you for the comprehensive list! I did some quick research and read some great articles about jauguar sightings in Arizona- especially about "Macho A" and "Macho B".
I have never heard of a Margay before- what an interesting species!

Andy,
I should rephrase my statement- "I have only seen bobcats before" haha!
Thank you for the information!

I've seen Cougar, and typically a Bobcat or two a year. Every couple of years or so... cougars make it into residential (and in one case, downtown) Hesperia and Apple Valley and eat people's pets/livestock...
we get the occasion nuisance bear, as well.
Not actually a cat... but I saw a Ringtail Cat once... jim

The group I know of that is doing work on keeping track of Jaguars in AZ is the SKY ISLAND ALLIANCE. I have a friend who has worked with them for years, and has some excellent photos of various cats seen in AZ on the group's facebook page.

I have personally seen several cougars and a handful of bobcats. I cherish every encounter with wild cats.

I hope to see a jaguar in the wild, and tracking one in the wild is on my personal bucket list.

AS far as I know there have been no confirmed Jagaurundi in the US since the late 80's. South Texas has been heavily surveyed with no luck. As for AZ, I'm not sure when the last documented Jagaurundi was, but it was before the TX one.

I have seen one Canada Lynx in AK and several Bobcats in the US. Also, 1 Jaguar and 1 Ocelot in Venezuela.

At first I just listed the Cats that occur in North America, here are the rest.

I'm in the same boat as a few other folks on here, here in the US I have only seen 2 bobcats. One while kayaking in Florida and one was trotting along a road in S. Illinois, both encounters were very short but the one in Florida I got a very good look at it.

Here in the US, I would absolutely love to see a mountain lion or a lynx or even more bobcats. For the rest I'll go to parts of their range where they are more common.

Then I have seen Jaguar and Ocelot tracks in central America, and several (old) Mountain lion kills in the Andes in South America. And participated in a project that camera trapped Clouded leopard, Bay Cat, marbled cat... but I didn't see any of those in person either.

I seem to have bad luck with cats. It always seems that I narrowly miss out on seeing them despite being the one that spends the most time out in their habitat (perhaps more focused on herps though). In Panama I was nighthiking often, of course an ocelot strolls underneath a balcony full of people drinking while I'm out in the jungle. I was out on that balcony drinking with everyone else alot too but noooo, of course the ocelot wouldn't show up one of those times. In Malaysia, I'm in the jungle every night and day for 2 months... my friend comes to visit and sees a clouded leopard on his drive in, in his first 20 min in the jungle! I was more happy for him than anything but that doesn't change the fact that I want to see one too!

My most memorable cougar encounter was when I was tracking a young male, and had kneeled down to examine a print... and he came up out of a gorge right in front of me, and we were face to face about 5 ft apart. We both froze, and just sat there staring at each other for like maybe 4 seconds (seemed a LOT longer ) He then turned and vanished back down the gorge. It was AWESOME! jim

The last year I lived in AZ (2012), there were documented sightings of at least one jaguar and at least one ocelot. A hunter's dogs treed a jaguar in Southern AZ after the hunter thought they were on a lion track. There was also a DOR ocelot found along highway 60, near Globe, in the Northern Sonoran. Last I heard, AZGFD was taking DNA samples to try and determine whether it was wild or an escaped pet. If you look at AZ on Google Earth, you will notice the dark green belt that comes up from Mexico to form the Mogollon rim in East-Central AZ. To the best of my knowledge this is the primary AZ historical range of jaguars, jaguarundis, and ocelots, although you're much more likely to see lions, bobcats, bears, and coatimundi there nowadays. I've seen all of the latter (with some ringtail cats thrown in for good measure ), but the Mexican cats continue to elude me.

Cat sightings are few and far between for most people, I think. Mine are:

Ocelot - 1 - crossing the road while I was roadhunting in the Yucatan
Jungle Cat - 1 - walking down a dirt road in Nepal
Bobcat - I see two or three a year, usually while I am out birding some NWR in south or coastal Texas. All of my photos look like this -

Mountain Lion - 3 or 4 - one quick glimpse while roadhunting the River Road in west Texas, and 2 or three sightings while driving the entrance road to Calakmul ruins in Campeche, Mexico. Those cats were just calmly walking down the forest road. Actually, we were dissapointed because there are 6 cat species recorded in this patch of forest and we saw one of the only two we had seen before.
Lion - we got up early in Botswana and went for a drive and found these (there are two here). It was cool because we weren't on a guided safari, just driving ourselves around an empty national park.

Interestingly, the best place to see Ocelots in the US is probably Laguna Atascosa NWR in South Texas. However, two ocelots were recently found DOR (and they only think there are 15 there) and so they shut the tour loop of the refuge to vehicular traffic, so your chances of seeing an ocelot there just went from 0.01% to 0.000001%.

In CA, I see Bobcats from time to time and would label them as uncommon. On the other hand, after more than 30-years of field herping, hiking, and camping, I only encountered Mountain Lions once. That happened last year when road cruising the San Gabriel Mountains. There were two, maybe even three, of them that ran in front of my truck and leaped up a sharp cliff. However, for me, even rarer than mountain lions are California Porcupine and Badger. I have yet to see a porcupine in Cali and the only Badgers I’ve seen were DOR.

My latest encounter was with a bobcat over the Summer. I've seen one since but this is the only shot I ever got at one. I heard some crashing in the bushes followed by some squealing. I quickly hid by a tree and waited for more movement. Heard some movement coming toward the path and let the camera role. This bobcat was just about as proud as a peacock to have that squirrel caught

On a side note, I've been hearing lots of reports of a dark large cat that looks almost like an otter on a nearby refuge. I'm thinking jaguarundi.

I hadn't heard about that ocelot. Thanks for the link. Somewhere out there are photos of a bobcat sitting at the top of a saguaro cactus. A resident of Gold Canyon, AZ watched one of the local lions chase it up there. Can't seem to remember if he was able to get shots of the lion. The shots of that bobcat are pretty funny, though.

Zach_Lim wrote:Also, I read that jaguars make it into parts of the south west. Can anyone confirm this?

This has been confirmed, in fact that use be part of the jaguars established range. Unfortunately the jarguar have been eradicated in most of North America. The south western individuals seen are usually migrates from Sonora who made their way up to Arizona and New Mexico.
The migration into former range sounds like a success but the plans to build the emigration wall (not sure the status of this) will trap individuals on either side. Thus not enough diversity and numbers to successfully establish a U.S. population.

So far I've only seen bobcats in the U.S., but after a long initial dry spell I've now seen them with some frequency and in a variety of locations and settings. I've looked for lynx a number of times but without luck.

I did considerably better, species-wise, in the three years I lived in Tikal National Park, Guatemala:

1 puma - My wife and I had just a fleeting look as it crossed the park road in front of our vehicle around dusk when we were returning from errands in a nearby town.

1 jaguar - I was cruising the park road one night looking for herps (herping being pretty much my only source of recreation while I was there) and alongside the road ahead of me I saw what I at first thought was a pony; I figured it probably wandered away from a poacher's camp in the forest. But as I pulled up to it I found it was a jaguar, which calmly looked at me from right beside my car through my open car window for a long moment, then just as calmly turned away and disappeared into the forest.

As great as that sighting was, I think my wife's was actually better. While bushwhacking in the forest one day she saw a jaguar that was apparently stalking the animals she was observing at the time. (We were there doing studies on white-nosed coatis.) She didn't get to see an attempted act of predation, though, as her field assistant panicked when he realized what she was looking at and in the noise of his rapid departure he spooked the cat. (This same "woods-wise" local guy similarly fled while assisting me one day when I captured a large milksnake. )

1 margay - My wife and I luckily spotted it where it was spending an afternoon perched relatively low in a tree off a forest path. We've got (slide) pictures of it around here somewhere, but they're nothing special.

Several (I don't know the exact number) ocelots - We saw them occasionally crossing the park road or a forest trail in front of us, less often while bushwhacking. Based on my experience in Tikal, I believe that lots of people who come back from Central or South America talking about the jaguars they saw actually saw ocelots. Excitement makes the eyes widen and the animals enlarge, I guess, combined with the fact that many more people have heard of jaguars than of ocelots. They're both pretty cool cat sightings, in any event. (Lots of people in Tikal mistook the vocalizations of black howler monkeys for jaguars roaring, too, sometimes even to the point where they would take off running in the direction opposite the sound. )

Tikal is a great place for viewing all kinds of wildlife, by the way, if one finds oneself in the vicinity. The Mayan temple ruins are worth a look, too.

I must say, except for the margay I mentioned above, I've never had a wild cat sighting of any kind that afforded me the opportunity - nor would I likely have the skill to properly take advantage of it - to photograph/film them so beautifully as some folks here have done. Said folks have my envy and gratitude for sharing their shots with us!

Not the best shot but here is a pic of a jaguar I took in North America. Not saying it is a North American subspecies...still in the USA tho
Thought it looked neat to see a Jag in the more arid environment with those crazy looking chaparral/desert flora.

chrish wrote:Cat sightings are few and far between for most people, I think. Mine are:

Yeah, I can't imagine the luck of anyone who sees cats "a lot". (Though full-time field researchers doing their work at night probably get more chances than anyone.)

Mine are:

4 bobcats. First was crossing a logging road at night as my dad and I were driving back from deer hunting. The other three were all crossing the same rural river-canyon highway on the same Kern County, California backpacking trip - the first an adult on my way in, then next two sub-adults just a few minutes apart on my way out - I figured those two were probably siblings that had only recently gone off on their own...does that make sense in mid-April though?

1 cougar. A good friend and I were backpacking in the southern Sierras when we crested a small hill at 11,000+ feet. I was absorbed with watching marmots play when we suddenly saw a large shape fleeing from us about 100 yards away. We only got quick glances of it as it passed between boulders in the boulderfield - maybe 3-4 shots of less than a second each before it disappeared behind a ridge. But no doubt that it was the one and only cougar that either of us had ever seen.

1 jaguarundi. My wife and I were staying in Cockscomb Jaguar Reserve for our honeymoon, but multiple simultaneous tropical depressions had kept us mostly off the trails. After three days of nothing but constant rain, the skies cleared for the first time and we went on a little hike in the morning. My wife had been a bit tired of my flipping earlier in the trip and had made an agreement that I could flip whatever I wanted, but she wouldn't stop and wait for me. Sure enough, on this little jaunt, I was in the process of flipping a log (finding nothing, as always) while she went on ahead, when she suddenly made a quick shout to me. I looked up just in time to see a jaguarundi flee off the trail. She said that when she had come upon it it had been stopped in the middle of the trail with its head down, sniffing at something....quite likely preoccupied enough that I might have gotten a camera shot if I had only been up with her!

3 leopard cats. First one was in Lawachara National Park, treed next to the road past midnight, as a local researcher and I drove back from trying to find our pangolin. I was really proud of this one because due to a stuck window, I had spent the whole drive literally hanging out of the car with the door open trying to light up the trees and spot something. It paid off, with my only good cat pic. We were able to watch it as long as we wanted and take as many pics as we wanted...if only I hadn't had a crap camera at the time:

The second leopard cat was a few days later, also past midnight, while bicycling on the same road in the same area and might well have been the same cat. This time it was on the ground about 30 meters away from me. It stayed long enough that I certainly could have gotten a pic, but I didn't have a camera with me at all because the weather had been horrendously stormy for most of the ride.

The third leopard cat was on the same trip a week or so later, while boating in the Sundarbans. We were able to make three passes on it and see it every time. It looked like a sub-adult to me. This is Scott Trageser's photo:

1 jungle cat. While herping an open area just outside of Udaipur, Rajasthan at the tail end of a minor rainfall, I turned and saw some eyeshine sitting just 20 meters away. I couldn't quite figure out what it was, got my camera out, lost track of it, then found it again just in time to see the beautiful body of a Jungle Cat walking causally away parallel to me. Unfortunately, a bush was perfectly placed between me and where the cat was going, so that I had to keep side-stepping to keep the cat in view, and couldn't manage to keep my headlamp on track and focus the camera and pull the trigger at the right moment to get a shot in the dark. I got to watch it take 5-6 nonchalant strides before the trail it was going down disappeared into brush.

2-3 leopards. Long story that I just told on the main forum, but basically I was stalking eyeshine in the dark which I thought was a small cat, when ma suddenly appeared in a flash and I realized it was a whole family. Only saw the mother leopard's body briefly, but it was from about 10 meters away. Watched her eyeshine appear in various places for close to 20 minutes. Only saw the cubs' eyeshine, never the bodies, and not sure if there was just 1 or 2 of them, because the eyeshine came in different spots but never at the same time.

I've been lucky enough to see a few large cats in my time looking for critters. I'll list some of my experiences by species:
Bobcat: I got to see these cats regularly in SE Arizona but as with most cats they never stuck around long enough for me to get a picture.
Lynx: I was going to Thompson MB and stopped at Pisew Falls Provincial Park, we lucked out and heard two lynx screaming at each other. Pisew means lynx in Cree and we though that was kind of a cool coincidence. Even more so when on the way back south an adult lynx was standing in the middle of the road at the same site. Again I missed the shot.
Cougar: I used to track cougars regularly on Vancouver Island in BC, this area has tons of cats but the dense salal makes it hard to see them. I'd been close enough where there were prints in mud that had flowing water in it. After years of getting skunked in the Pacific Northwest I went down to Arizona every couple weeks there was good sign of cougars including an occasion were one appeared to have been watching me while I caught and measured lizards along a narrow canyon (I went there everyday at the same time). Despite this I never got a good look until one night when we were cruising through an oak woodland and a cougar dashed in front of the car, then three days later some bird watchers told us there was a cougar in the dry creek. A few of us crawled on our bellies for quite a while and got this shot. I've posted it before and it's not a great shot but one of my favorites due to the wait and effort required to get it. Felis concolor by N Cairns, on Flickr

I've seen a few big cats in Arizona and elsewhere in the United States. Bobcats are common enough in Southeast Arizona and I see a few each year hiking and road cruising. I've seen them in other areas as well.
I've seen one Canadian lynx (Lynx canadensis). I watched it walk across a clearing and disappear into some brush in Denali National Park in Alaska 5 or 6 years ago. That was an experience I'll always remember.
In Arizona, mountain lions aren't too commonly seen, and I hadn't seen any before this year. I saw my first while cruising a remote mountain road this May. We rounded a bend and saw it slinking across the road. When it noticed the car it got off the road quickly and up over a rock cut. We never got a great view, and briefly considered following it, but considering we were all alone in the middle of the night we thought it might not be the best idea.
By far my most heart-stopping big cat encounter happened later this summer (early Augustt), although I was outside the U.S.. I was helping with herp surveys of a ranch above Alamos, Sonora (eventually I'll make a post about what we found down there- it was an incredible area). One night, it was cool and drizzly, and no one else was really in the mood for going out herping. But seeing as I was only there for five nights, and I wanted to make the most of my time, I reluctantly headed out alone (not too smart), with a flashlight, a spare, and a camera to see what I could turn up. I walked down a dirt track, preoccupied with checking the common anurans that dotted the road. I followed the winding road through dense tropical deciduous forest, looking around my feet with the flashlight. After turning a bend and cresting a hill, I took a look at the road ahead of me, and saw a pair of eyes glowing my flashlight, less than a hundred meters from where I stood. At this point I was about a mile from camp.
I slowly approached the eyeshine, at first unsure what I was seeing. The animal looked huge, with a long neck, but I couldn't see more. Eventually as I got closer I could make out the clear outline of a mountain lion in my flashlight beam. Then another pair of eyes emerged from behind the first, and a second adult mountain lion came into view.
Needless to say, I was starting to get scared. Barely breathing, I started to retreat back along the road, holding my arms out above my head to make myself look big and speaking in a slow voice: "it's okay, you're alright, nothing to worry about," etc. I heard somewhere you're supposed to do that.
Both lions paced back and forth for a few moments, but as I began to get further away they stopped pacing and started coming toward me, one on either side of the road. I started backing up more quickly but they matched my pace. I raised my voice and waved my arms, moving the flashlight back and forth between them as they approached.
After the most terrifying ten seconds of my life (I was really sure I was going to be attacked), my noise and movements must've scared them off. Or maybe not, but for some reason they decided to walk together up into the forest on the roadside. They were still coming diagonally toward me, and ended up just uphill from where I was. I could hear some small noises coming from bushes in the area. After frantically scanning the wall vegetation for a long time, I started back, still backing up slowly, and looking all around with my light. After about twenty minutes of this slow retreat, I turned around and hurried back to camp. I didn't breathe easy until I was back in the lighted camp, surrounded by people. I told some biologists what I'd seen, and they were dubious, so we walked back up to the spot. Although there was no sign that the cats were still around, a set of big cat tracks was visible on each side of the road.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to the pair of mountain lions? As I understand it they're normally solitary animals, and was very surprised to see two adults. I don't know much about mammals though, maybe some of you guys have some insight into their behavior.

Picked up a copy for myself while in the Chiricahuas a few years ago. An excellent read, with awesome photos.

Contrast that "excellent read" with Cloak and Jaguar. The true story about the rogue biologist and the incompetent AZGF/USFWS who killed Macho B. One of the saddest accounts of AZ jaguars that you will read in your lifetime. What is worse is many of the "guilty" are still being paid to work with jags while the low level staffers who were helping with the project were thrown under the bus. Emil McCain and Co. had no business working with that cat, I still get angry when I see one of the last photos of Macho B sitting in a wash wounded, completely dazed, and weak after spending a night trapped in a snare suffering from the effects of a cocktail of drugs that had no business being administered to a 16 year old wild jag.

The only cat in north america ive seen is the bobcat, probably seen a good dozen around the bay area, especially in the east bay. I once got to see a bobcat get chased by a flock of turkeys, the cats seem a lot smaller in person